Business Insider Edition
Sony has one more Marvel hit to give us before 2018 ends.
Following the box office smash, "Venom," it now has opened the dazzling animated movie, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," which is an origin story of Spider-Man Miles Morales, but also a deep dive into the Spidey mythology as Miles is trained by Peter Parker and others who call themselves Spider-Man in other dimensions.
The movie has wowed critics and is gaining steam in being the movie to beat in the animation category at the Oscars. Now, it's broken a box office record.
Opening over the weekend in North America, the movie took in an estimated $35.4 million, which is the biggest opening weekend ever for an animated movie in December (passing 2016's "Sing," which took in $35.2 million ).
Playing in over 3,800 theaters, the movie proved it was going to pass industry projections when it took in a healthy $12.6 million on Friday. And with little competition to worry about, the movie has become a must-see for younger audiences, fans of the Miles Morales comics, and Spider-Man superfans.
Expect this one to continue performing strong in the coming weeks as word of mouth only builds.
The same can't be said about Universal's "Mortal Engines." The $100 million-plus adaptation of the Philip Reeve books produced by Peter Jackson has turned out to be a major bust with the movie only taking in $7.5 million on 3,100 screens.
Warner Bros.' latest Clint Eastwood-directed release, "The Mule," which also stars the 88-year-old legend (his first role since 2012's "Trouble with the Curve"), took in a healthy $17.2 million.
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